Hall of Fame recognition for Information Security Group Professor

Posted on 10/04/2008

Professor Fred Piper of the Information Security Group at Royal Holloway, University of London, has been nominated to the ‘Hall of Fame’ being launched at InfoSecurity Europe, which will take place from 22-24 April 2008 at London Olympia. The InfoSecurity Europe Hall of Fame acknowledges those that have made the most significant contributions to Information Security. In the run up to this year’s event, thousands of votes were cast by professionals who visit infosec.co.uk, Infosecurity Magazine and Computer Weekly portals and Professor Piper emerged as the front runner for recognition with 30 percent of the vote. Nominees had to be an internationally recognised and respected information security practitioner or advocate, who had made a clear and long term contribution to the advancement of information security, by providing intellectual or practical input that has led to the advancement of information security. Speaking on his nomination, Fred Piper said, “I believe the reason I have been voted to receive this recognition is because I’m at the head of a fantastic team and this is acknowledgment of all their activities, teaching ability, hard work and research behind the MSc in Information Security that goes on at Royal Holloway.” Piper continued, “The electronic handling of information is one of the defining technologies of our age. Enormous volumes of information are routinely stored and transmitted worldwide - indeed, most aspects of our daily lives would come to a halt should the information infrastructure fail. Yet the fundamental issue we all face is protecting this data. Personal data has a right to be protected and organisations have a responsibility to treat it with the same respect shown to other classified information. Security has moved on from the algorithms of the 80s, today it comes down to the human factor, the management side of security. As an educationalist, the more people are educated then the better information security will become.” Other nominees joining Professor Piper in the Hall of Fame are Adam Laurie, Director for The Bunker, a data centre solution firm, Alan Paller, Director of research for the SANS institute, the largest source for information security and certification in the world, Bruce Scheiner, an internationally renowned security technologist and author and Howard Schmidt, who has worked for both Microsoft and the White House.